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A few posts ago I wrote about self-rape, a word I made up for me to describe unwanted sexual acts I have performed and were performed on me because I did not have the guts to say no. I am not referring to situations where saying “No” would have had bad or worst consequences; there are a lot of sick men who are enticed by some ‘struggling’. I am talking about situations where a “No” would have not gone down well, but it would have been listened to without consequences. I, for me, call having not-voluntary sex when there could have been a no sex ‘self-rape’. It is not that I wanted it, but in me the option to say no was first taken away, and then when it partially grew back, it went unpractised. Still not good at it now but I want to become good at it. 🙂

I am in a process of uncovering layers and layers of old behaviour and memories in the hope to undo damage and to un-addict. I am aware that those who are in a different place/situation with this subject might have different opinions on this. But for me this is what it is right now. This is how I perceive it now.

It is very unfortunate that my childhood spirit was already broken before I could even make up my adult mind on what and how when it came to sex. At age 48 I still often wonder about my sexual orientation, not sure if I really like women physically, intellectually and emotionally or sometimes dislike men because of the memories. And so I walked a path of self-destruction which has been and is painful. These days I start to understand how far-reaching my self-destructive acts where and are. But watching the Stormy Daniels 60 minutes interview I realised I am not the only one. The part which worries me most starts at 1:40 and ends at 3:24.

In the transcript below I made the worrying parts in a bold lettering – if WP catches on to that in the quote mode…. Self-hate, self-destruction, self-rape speaking loudly – in my ears. She passes it off as a business deal, but how split does a person have to be in order to do this? How do you perceive this?

Stormy Daniels: I asked him if I could use his restroom and he said, “Yes, you know, it’s through those– through the bedroom, you’ll see it.” So I– I excused myself and I went to the– the restroom. You know, I was in there for a little bit and came out and he was sitting, you know, on the edge of the bed when I walked out, perched.

Anderson Cooper: And when you saw that, what went through your mind?

Stormy Daniels: I realized exactly what I’d gotten myself into. And I was like, “Ugh, here we go.” (LAUGH) And I just felt like maybe– (LAUGH) it was sort of– I had it coming for making a bad decision for going to someone’s room alone and I just heard the voice in my head, “well, you put yourself in a bad situation and bad things happen, so you deserve this.”

Anderson Cooper: And you had sex with him.

Stormy Daniels: Yes.

Anderson Cooper: You were 27, he was 60. Were you physically attracted to him?

Stormy Daniels: No.

Anderson Cooper: Not at all?

Stormy Daniels: No.

Anderson Cooper: Did you want to have sex with him?

Stormy Daniels: No. But I didn’t– I didn’t say no. I’m not a victim, I’m not–

Anderson Cooper: It was entirely consensual.

Stormy Daniels: Oh, yes, yes.

Anderson Cooper: You work in an industry where condom use is– is an issue. Did– did he use a condom?

Stormy Daniels: No.

Anderson Cooper: Did you ask him to?

Stormy Daniels: No. I honestly didn’t say anything.

Anderson Cooper: After you had sex, what happened?

Stormy Daniels: He said that it was great, he had– a great evening, and it was nothing like he expected, that I really surprised him, that a lotta people must underestimate me– that he hoped that I would be willing to see him again and that we would discuss the things we had talked about earlier in the evening.

Am I the only one who finds this behaviour sad, worrysome, self-destructive? And, for another thing: this is not something that needs to be advocated as a reason to have sex AND not something to be advocated as consensual. ‘Not wanting to but feeling not being able to get out of it’ does NOT equal consent. It does not equal rape either according to the law. Energetically I think she violates her and his integrity.

Let me conclude that both people were not where I think it is healthy to be. She having sex with a guy she does not want, he not even aware or not caring that he is sharing something not given in joy. In Trumps words: “Sad”.

I am happy that I quit.

Wishing you a wonderful sober day with many good sober thoughts and haha, maybe a serenity prayer. 😉 I could use some thorough insight in that now for both posting on somebodye elses sex-life and for not doing what I should be doing in the meantime. So here:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

A lot of time I wonder why I am at home, doing nothing for the so maniest time in my life. However, I do feel that it is needed for me to sink another level back into the truth, to peel another layer of the onion, to work through some reoccurring issues.

Currently I am trying to work out how self-hate works. Years ago I found out that I hate myself because ‘when I hate myself, at least I do something good’. The subject needs looking into because I have been in a very bad place on and off for the last months and I am not sure how to cope with this eternal darkness attacking me. I know it is me doing the attacking – but I did not know how. And somehow I need to intellectually and energetically understand the mechanics of something to be able to deal.

When it comes to self-hate, all I did know is that I have developed it as a ‘safe guard’ between me and my parents, mom in particular. Who, by the way, did her own lot of self-hating too. 😦 I am guessing, if you are in a situation where anxiety, addiction, self-harm and other destructive behaviour shows up, you might want to check out this vid from Teal Swan. Hope it brings you as much insight as it did me. 🙂

Coping mechanisms are strategies and behaviors that are carried out to mitigate, manage or adapt to anything that causes distress. If we cope with something, we do so because we feel we cannot change the stressor itself. We have to adapt to it so that the hurt we feel as a result of it is decreased or eliminated. We would all hope for a world that did not have to be coped with. Alas, that is not the world we currently live in and so it must be said that even though all coping mechanisms hold the potential to be limiting and damaging to a person in the long run, certain coping mechanisms can be more detrimental than others. And the most dangerous coping mechanism is self-hate.

At first glance it may be hard to see how self-hate could possibly be a coping mechanism. After all, self-hate can’t possibly decrease a person’s distress can it? The answer is yes it can. And to see how, we much journey back to the genesis of this coping mechanism.When we look at a dysfunctional home, what we find is that the root of each person’s self concept in the family system is shame. This feeling of shame has been passed down from generation to generation. It is the primary stressor in the household. Everyone has to find a way to cope with that shame. The ways they cope with that shame set up the dysfunctional family system and determine what role each person will play in it.

To understand how self hate develops, we must see that if one or more of the parents is dealing with a baseline self concept of shame, a child being different to that parent in any way or even asserting a boundary will trigger that feeling of shame. It will invalidate their identity, which they already subconsciously think is bad. This is why the golden child in a family will learn to cope by throwing their identity out the window as a strategy to avoid being shamed and ostracized within the family. They will become a ‘mini me’ as an adaptive strategy to the parent they feel they must please in order to stay safe with.

The child that cannot adapt by throwing their identity out the window and whom can’t find a way to please the adult consistently for a multitude of reasons will be so upsetting to the self concept of the parent that the parent will subconsciously turn against the child. They may say, “I love you” to this child and try to do loving things for them, but the truth of how they really feel is not what they are presenting on the surface and the truth comes out in all kinds of ways. Their only way of avoiding the shame they feel and the shame this child triggers in them is to emotionally disown the child and deflect that shame onto the child and that child then becomes the family scapegoat. It is to say, “I’m not bad, you’re bad and you are my problem and now I’m the victim to you, and so is everyone else in the household.” The family can then hide all of their dysfunction behind this “family problem” person and can see themselves as the good ones because all of their focus can be placed on trying to fix what is “wrong” with this person. What is wrong with them is that everyone in the family has turned against them for being different and for not being able to change that. But the other people in the house can’t see this. This person has become the identified patient in the family.

The experience of being turned against by the very people who you need love and belonging from the very most is so painful it is beyond describing. And it makes it so the child has no way to feel safe. They feel hated by their family, especially the parent who initiates this shame deflection. They are growing up with an antagonist, an antagonist upon whom their life depends. And the way a person copes with this is genius in the short term but completely destructive in the long term.

A child put in this position, pushes themselves away. But they can’t physically do that so what happens is the pushing away of themselves, splits their consciousness in half. To understand more about this concept, watch my video called Fragmentation, The Worldwide Disease. When they split their consciousness in half, one half contains the parts within them that they perceive that their parent hates. The other half becomes a mirror image of their parent… An internal antagonist. This internal antagonist takes over the job of hating them for the parent. It becomes the one that is constantly shaming and criticizing the parts within this person that are seen as wrong and bad by the parent and now as a result, by the person themselves. This makes the hurt not only controllable, but predictable. And the child believes that by doing this, they might just be able to change the things that are so detestable about them. The person has become their own abuser and hater so that the antagonistic parent is never given the occasion or opportunity to do it. Imagine you were going to go up to someone to hit them and they just started hitting themselves. What would you do? Chances are, the desire to hurt them would go away. You’d feel on an energetic level that your goal was already being carried out. You would feel like either something is really wrong with them so they must need your help or that they agree that they deserve it to such a degree that they are going to do it for you. This would make you feel validated. This is usually the point at which the parent gets an extra boost of self-esteem through turning themselves into the “false healer” and the child is turned into an identified patient.

As you can see, this self-hating aspect is actually trying to save their life and rescue them from the wrath of the parent. This part holds the truths of what matters most to them. For example, perhaps what the parent hated about the child was that she was so sensitive. The self-hating part will constantly criticize and shame her for being sensitive. Because the thought is that with enough disapproval of it, she will either stop being that way or be motivated to fix it. And this will get her the sense of belonging and safety she wants. We can then tell that the truth this self-hating aspect holds is just how important belonging and safety are and how much she needs those things. Ideally, we need to figure out these valued and needed things that the self hater is holding the truth of and try to get those things directly in the places that we can get them from.

Self hate is a coping mechanism that is so dangerous because it is a coping mechanism that may keep you safer from the external hater/antagonist, but it leads to constant anxiety because you are living with a part that behaves like an enemy in your own skin. And it leads to all kinds of dangerous behaviors in the long term. Things like risk taking, abusive relationships, self-destructive behaviors, self-injury and even suicide.

When you find this part within you, see the benevolent reason for its existence. See that its strategy, though genius while you were living in an abusive environment, is now destroying your ability to live a life that is worth living. See that the parts of you that this part has turned against, need to be accepted and loved instead. Go directly for the things you were trying to indirectly get by trying to hate these parts of you away. Give them to yourself and get them from others. The life you want to live is just on the other side of wanting to be you instead of agreeing with your antagonistic parent that you should be someone else.

I am happy that I quit. It has been difficult going but insights like this make me happy :-). I do not know how it works, it gives space, it frees me of darkness. It brings, I don’t know, light? 🙂

I watched the video twice, feeling and remembering my way through what has happened in my life and how self-hate is happening currently. I was able to let go of some parts. Always funny how ‘letting go’ immediately causes an internal clamping reaction and how letting go of that to led me to a land of no self-hate. That is strange. I am and feel totally different there. Realise that I have no clue who I am if I do not hate myself. Breathe, relax and drink water. Feeling my whole body, system, all my energy wanting to hang on to what was. It is time to let go. This also means that I must take responsibility for being here. Ha! That is a ‘ziektewinst’ thing. What did I gain from being the victim of (self)hate? Not having to be responsible.

A woman who loves herself would love herself, get dressed and go out now the sun is shining. Do something. Allow myself to enjoy myself instead of sitting here being stuck in self-hatred. Ok, now I know how it works, I need to change the energetic mechanics of it. Funny how all these behaviours look like addictions. So, ha! I should be able to do that if I set myself to it.

I can see, feel the woman who (forcibly) loves herself stretching out her hand to the woman who learns not to hate herself. One day soon they might meet in the land of living within Love & Peace. ❤

I just read a beautiful post at A Hangover Free’s blog. A men sends in a letter to a newspaper about his 26 year old alcoholic daughter. He, his wife and daughter live in one house and the daughters addiction linked behaviour is getting out of hand. A person who seems to be very familiar with addiction, denial and the (family) dynamics around this replies to the man’s letter. Please read here.

The whole situation made me think about my own drinking and how strong the denial about the problem was.

I still have no clue what-so-ever as to what words people could have used to make me see my drinking was a problem. Until I myself began to see it as a problem I just denied everything. Well, I have literally known from the first drink that I would get addicted but with that thought the denial already set in. I wanted to drink. Well, maybe I did not want to drink but I DEFINITELY did NOT want to be me. I wanted to ‘not experience being me’ in a very destructive way and I immediately felt that alcohol was the ‘right’ tool for that.

At my first, second or possibly third drink something ‘split’ away from me. Something I did not want to have true. It moved away from me and sided with all the other separate stuff I had unloaded on this, well, non-existent ‘me’ who walked beside me. Actually, come to think of it, this whole pack of unprocessed, denied memories and energies actually has a place next to my body; it walks at 4-5 o’clock behind me. And then there is this hurt part which I am aware-ish off which I have lifted up in the heavens. That comes with me at 1-2 o’clock at arms length above me. Do you also have these ‘not tangible’ ’emotional’ ‘storage rooms’ around you?

This is the first real day of my holidays. I have difficulty grasping the concept of it. The other day I was telling my neighbour that I would bring extra food (left overs from lunch) home from work because ‘That is so handy in the holidays, so I don’t have to cook.” Today I called the office for them to check upon a machine because there has been a little child running around my dreams for 3 days nagging me about the thing secretly not functioning. Sigh…. I did not ask for confirmation. I really need to let go. That, and only that has been my goal of the last days; relaxing in what I do. Eat chocolate like crazy? Take off the blame. What would a woman who loved herself do now? She would not eat chocolate. Can I not eat chocolate? No. I can not. But I can not hate myself for it. That is when rest settles in. In that rest I can experience the ‘restless energy’ which makes me grab the chocolate again, it actually feels like a frightened girl child trying to sooth itself rather mechanically. :-(. Wonder where she came from. Funny thing, me sitting here wondering if that is me. In a post about denial. I think to know it is me. Ha. But that is the brain only. There is no recognition in senses, in feelings. And before you (i!) know this whole experience slips away from me into, what? another compartmentalization. Life is a funny something.

My theory is that anything we do is based in the idea that it is good for us. So I prefer(ed?) denial over truth because I was somehow convinced that it would bring me less harm. Less shame, less guilt, less pain than knowing what my drinking was doing to me and my surroundings. Untill that balance is broken I find (I guess anybody finds) it difficult to change my behaviour. Unless we (i!) become conscious of what we (i!) do and how we (i!) react we (i!) apply coping mechanism after coping mechanism on everything we (i!) can not come to grips with. Then there is another natural rule: we like things easy and automatic, which is why things do not easily become conscious.

And a third rule might be that we live in a society which has unconsciousness as God. From anything to everything, we like it unconscious; we eat food made by unconscious people who do not care about the consequences of their actions upon animals, crops, water and fields and future. Look around in a supermarket and 95% if not more of what is available does not qualify as food; calorie bombs with chemicals and no nutritional value. It is detrimental to our health and we would be better, healthier and happier without because is does not add to us, worst; it ruins us.

We wear cloths of which the materials have been grown in fields with people who get diseases and miscarriages because of the pesticide big companies use on the cotton crops. Their water supplies are depleted and their land is wasted, never to be used for food again. We live in cities where the noise and distraction levels are so high it is difficult to even hear our own thoughts or sleep at night because of the light pollution. We are chained to anything which is digital, non-human, non-natural. We overfeed ourself with digital, visual and sound impulses till late after bedtime and call this life. We wake up moaning and demanding coffee to counteract the restless sleep that happened.

We bore out the second it gets quiet. Our standards for living are so ‘high’ that we need 2 jobs in a family to support the house, the 2 cars, the holidays, the clothing, the everything. Children get tucked away in schools, pre-school care, after school care, summer camps and whatever classes we see fit for them to take to ‘let them develop’. But few of them actually get their 2 hours of physical play in open, unpolluted air which are a minimum for healthy physical, social and emotional development. We are pacified from birth to seniority by pacifiers, ADHD medicine, television, game computers, phones, internet, booze, drugs, all kinds of medication for mental illnesses up to our dying age.

Within one generation from visiting people by walking over to them and using the backdoor to step into the house without knocking we have gone to being offended when somebody actually calls – instead of ‘apps’. Our relations are digital, we share all of our life in pictures, blogs and emoticons online but a phone call is an intrusion of ‘privacy’ – not so much because they are actually intimately involved with anything at any time but because we are so overfed that it is an effort to really connect to a person at any given moment.

We live far away from what has been natural for thousands of years. When we get ill, which we do, have no doubts about that, we go see a doctor and get ‘medicine’ which are as synthetic as our lives and we are surprised we don’t get better. Or worst: we develop other illness as unfortunate ‘side effects’ or we get addicted to them.

/ Ok, Thoreau mode off.

And still; you know this. I know all of this and do I change? Nope. Well, yes, a tiny little bit. I minimized meat intake to once a week, not buying any, just eating 2 bites of chicken at work because it is in the lunch. I still eat cheese like crazy. I still wear cotton clothes, 2nd hand most of it. I live in a city. It drives me crazy. I will become ill of it, if I not already am. If this, this spilling my heart out on the internet is not already very much a symptom of the disconnected world I experience AND contribute to. Denial is everywhere. And I do not even know how to change. Baby steps Feeling, baby steps.

Oh, by the way, I do know how to change: by giving up all addictive behaviour I have. But I don’t. I guess I do not like consciousness because above is the floodgate of dislike, of hate, of experiencing displacement and powerlessness which opens up whenever I really start thinking about life.

Then, when I take a step back it looks like an addict all-or-nothing trait. Like talking the world upon my shoulders but not even being able to take care of my chocolate intake. Something with a serenity prayer ;-). What I write when in Thoreau mode is not untrue, it is just, well, I can only change what I have influence on and it is of no natural use to me to worry about things I can not change.

How did I get off track? Hmmm… Well, denial is/was so strong because my addictive part is (was!) absolutely convinced that it would be disastrous to not drink. Only when I found myself in the darkest of nights and where the disadvantages grew I could not muster the strength anymore to keep up the walls of denial and truth came seeping in. Which is only a logic result to how the Universe is organised. If I do not set boundaries to destruction, the outside world will do it for me, eventually.

I had no clue as to how to stop destructing myself and then somebody in a car drove me off my bike while I rode it on a pedestrian crossing. His anger towards me enormous and he was an enormous guy, even for a Dutchy. But I only saw him and what he did as a reflection of my own destruction. And that is what shook me: “My self-destructive habits have taken me over and others are acting upon it.”

Obviously he had NO right at all to actually yell at me for him not seeing me (yes, that is what he did). Or drive me off my bike at a pedestrian crossing. Or not even see me there. I mean? Well, that aside. But I am thinking this whole experience was not about that. It was about the Universe making me ready to give in. Or me caring so badly for me that it was not unnatural to be hit by a destructive force from the outside. Weaklings in a group get picked out and are preyed upon. I went to the GP to check on the arm which had a wound. Or I was ready to take this as a lesson from the Universe. What ever way… it happened. And in hindsight is was good. 🙂

What was good about the GP’s behaviour is that she did not push me energetically. She did not try to persuade me. She offered a soothing proposal and then withdrew, respectfully waiting for me to reply. She told me: “On your terms and in your time.” and she meant it. (sort of ish, but enough for me to buy it) And because of her not pushing I did not have to build a wall of denial. Does that make sense?

I had told her the week before that I drank too much and that it had become a problem. She asked me why I had not changed things. I said I could not.
“Why not seek help?”
“That makes it real and that is embarrassing, I am so ashamed.”
“So because you are ashamed about your problem you do not seek help to change it?”
“Eh, yes.”

That’s when the penny dropped. Ghegheghe, this discrepancy is the first time I could looked at how denial about drinking worked for me. I guess I was ready to change and because she spoke without judgement I could listen.

To me denial is not about ‘not knowing’, I was constantly aware-ish of my drinking issues but I well, yeah, denied it; I made sure it did not come to the front of the brain. And when it did, like when it was undeniable because I did something stupid I covered it up with guilt (feeling guilty is a nice way to not to have to change anything – since you are feeling guilty already… ) and drank a little more just to not feel bad. Looking back there was a lot of power in that denial. And ha, funny in a not funny way; a lot of energy was locked into it too. It takes a LOT of energy to deny stuff.

During the writing of this post I did some online research. Came up with a vid of Teal Swan which I think is very informative and I think right in the sense of ‘correct’ or ‘she understands it the way I understand it. As before: she is acquired taste and she is controversial but I like what I have seen of her so far. And yes, I do watch with care because (sorry Teal) something about her mimics does not always ring true. What she says does though, to me. I love her lists of steps. Never do any of it but it makes the process clear. Hope you enjoy.

I am happy that I quit. Today this thought came to me: Sadness is loss which is not accepted. I am not sad about not drinking, I am happy that I said goodbye because it was a choice I made and I had and took the time to say goodbye.

Wishing you a nice (sober?) evening/day.

Ooh, in order to not Netflix I did a single player board game which I had laying about for ages. I was surprised to find that I had NO difficulty with it at all till I game to level 25. I can remember that 5 years back I found every single game a challenge! NEW!!! I had not realised that drinking had such an impact on my cognitive skills. (Yeah, denial, denial…)

Ha, I was curious as to why I was so enthusiastic about Esther Nicholson from the tapping conference yesterday. And… then I checked out the OTHER interview. Dealing with me going in denial here – but I DID listen to Alina Frank and Craig Weiner on Learning to Love: Healing the Legacy of Trauma to Create Physical and Emotional Intimacy.

It was difficult to hear. I go into freezing at the moment people speak about freezing. Thoughts of things that happened have been I don’t know, driven to the background more and more. They were very present before I quit drinking and the anger stayed on for a few months and then, I don’t know, my direction of thought and feeling changed and it was not important anymore for me at these times.

During my last 6 months I have made some discoveries about childhood and youth, will, issues. I discovered that I had this sense of foreboding in, as far as I can remember, every situation that I ever got harassed. As far as I can remember ‘harassment’ never came ‘out of the blue’ – not at age 18, not at age 4. But that doesn’t make it easier to deal with because now I go from thinking I am stupid and bad because this happened to me to actually feeling responsible. And I KNOW that is not the whole truth but I did not take action on my intuition and that is something that has gotten me in trouble at all sorts of levels in all sorts of situations.

I also discovered that I have this energetic door that I slam into the face of any man I meet. And that this triggers aggression. I don’t want to go into that too deep now. Need my wits upon me. Wondering if I’m self-sabotaging my (hopefully) new job with falling back into well, unsolved issues. I learned in the last month that I am pretty ok with being overweight and having grey hair because it ‘keeps me safe’ from admirers. Yes, time for some feel good film on Netflix and sleep. No dwelling on the past. Sign some contracts first, focus on a new job.

I will put in one extra paragraph on sex. If you know me in real life you might want to skip this one…. I have experienced almost a total lack of sex-drive since I quit drinking and fantasies that would normally stimulate me now look awful and inappropriate. (Yes this paragraph is about single-sex in case you wondered 😉 ) Also having sexual fantasies about actual people is something that I suddenly feel is very inappropriate ‘through-the-air-energy’ wise. Yeah, sounds funny, I know, but it is one of those psychological/physical changes that I find, well, strange – before I quit I would not have guessed that this would be part of it. It’s good, I guess, but a little funny to feel like I redefine sexuality at age 45. Having said so, I am guessing that nasty sexual experiences are a very big part of my drinking history so maybe it is actually the first thing I should have expected to change. Hmmm…. Shall I put ‘sex’ in the tags? I’ll dress it up a little. 🙂 The thought of sober sex is something that scares me and on the other side feels interesting. But I don’t have to worry about it because I lack a guy. And… seeing what is changing in me currently I am more and more convinced that it is indeed not wise to even think of starting a relation in the first year of recovery.

For those who know me in RL you can continue reading here:

I am happy that I quit although I could do with some serious tea.

I need: to keep my wits about me and not self-sabotage.

I want: the whole world to explode (sorry) where I am the only one who survives (sorry, again). I guess I need to take care of me. It’s amazing how quickly memories of events that I have experienced as destructive turn into big destructive feelings towards well, everything and everybody (triple sorry). Everything was fine yesterday. I need to Netflix, bathe, sleep.

Have a nice evening / day / morning! I promise you I will not blow up the world :-D. Just Netflix, bath, sleep. And sorry for you from the NSA having to read this blog now because somebody anonymously typed about blowing up the world: these are not code words. Just expressions of destructive feelings. 🙂 Trust me. 😀